In Pie We Trust

(Can't read this cartoon clearly? Click it!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Last Year.

Another year has passed and I, for one, am happy about it. Personally, I had one of the roughest years ever, but those problems mended as the year went on and the election results in November helped to end it on a positive note.

Here's hoping all of you have a terrific and prosperous 2009, unless, of course, you are a bad person who victimizes others, in which case I hope you get caught.

I know everyone is tired of hearing about politics, so am I, but six weeks ago when I drew this cartoon it seemed a good subject for the year in review. I particularly like the "In Pie We Trust" symbol on the bottom of the first panel. Maybe I'll offer that as a T-shirt at some point.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

Popeye eats his favorite vegetable to put the smack-down on a gorilla on Bud Sagendorf's cover to Popeye #42 (1957).

(Standard disclaimer about Trap Island gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Clown Army

Bizarro is brought to you today by Clowns That Kill.

When I was in elementary school in Oklahoma, I played all the sports that were offered. My least favorite was basketball, because we played with an adult-sized ball on and adult-sized court. Most of us couldn't even throw a basketball high enough into the air to hit a backboard, much less accurately enough to get a basket. It would be as if average-sized adults were playing with a ball the size of an airplane tire and the hoop was hanging on the edge of a three-story building. The final scores ended up being more like hockey games than basketball.

A couple of times each year in basketball and other sports, we would play the kids from the local military school. These kids were scary. They were gaunt, tough, bruised, nearly bald, and had the look in their eye of a man on death row who has nothing left to lose. Their gymnasium was cold and dilapidated, and the entire campus was out on the edge of town and felt like you were visiting the set of a teen horror flick. I don't think we ever beat the military school kids at any sport. I remember not wanting to beat them, partly because I felt sorry for them and partly because I didn't want them to tear my head off and spit down my throat.

But the kids from the clown school were easy to beat. They were always tripping over their big, floppy shoes, for one thing, so we had a big advantage right off the bat. In many ways, however, they were even scarier.

APPEARANCES

Time for a quick update of some public appearances coming up this month. Of course, I appear in public several times each week – popping over to the deli across the street, going to the art supply store – but I don't advertise it and nobody cares. The following are advertised appearances about which I hope at least a few people will care.

January 8 and 10, HAWAII!!! Yes, the one in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's a long flight from NYC, but you get a flower necklace when you get there so it's worth it. I'm doing a show for the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii. I'll do a song, some stand-up comedy, show lots of slides of my cartoons about diet and lifestyle and animals and stuff, and you will laugh. I promise.
Thursday, January 8, 2009, 7 p.m., Cameron Center, 95 Mahalani Street, Wailuku, Maui
Then I fly over to Honolulu and do it again on...
Saturday, January 10, 2009, 7 p.m., McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, Oahu

But, just when everyone is all hating me for being tan in January, I spend the week of 19 - 25th in INDIANAPOLIS!!!! Yes, the one in the middle of the snow. It's a short flight from NYC, but you get to freeze your (choose an extremity) off when you get there.
There, I'll be an "artist in residence," setting up my art supplies and computers at the Eiteljorg Museum all week and doing my regular work schedule (without the whiskey, cigars, chorus girls and cussing that usually accompany my work day) for people to gawk at like a monkey in a zoo. The only difference between me and the monkeys will be that I'll be fully clothed and answering questions politely.

On Saturday, Jan 24, there will be an all-day program with several other artists called Western and Native Reflections in Comic Books

On Sunday, Jan 25, I'll be doing one of my hour-long funny talk comedy lecture things called The Bizarro West with Dan Piraro, where I'll show cartoons I've done over the years about the Old West, Native Americans, Cowboys and Indians, etc. It'll be a shoot 'em up hootenanny you won't want to miss.

So I'll be around all week talking and being laid-back, working on cartoons, selling books and prints and trading cards, signing things, wishing I was still in Hawaii. Come on by and keep me company.

Cowboy Comedy

Bizarro is brought to you today by Macho Menswear.

There are few things I enjoy poking fun at more than cowboys. I was raised around these folks in Oklahoma and Texas and have always found their odd mixture of macho posturing and obviously effeminate clothing (high-heel boots with jangly jewelry on the heels, pearl buttons, flowery two-tone shirts, wide-brim hats, a jaunty scarf about the neck, big flashy belt buckle) amusing.

Still, the one thing about cowboys that I've always liked, besides riding horses and shooting guns at people you don't like, is the clothes. I don't wear the hat or scarf or big-ass belt buckle, but I have a small collection of kooky vintage cowboy shirts and wear them often. I like the boots, too, (only the ones with slanted heels and pointy toes, not the clunky,stubby, farmy kind) but haven't found a good pair of vegan ones.

When I was a little kid, all I wanted to be was a cowboy. That notion was based on TV shows and movies, of course. I didn't realize that being a cowboy in modern times would mean driving a pickup truck instead of a horse, listening to country music (AAAAUUUUGGH!), living in the middle of nowhere, and trading your six shooter for a cell phone.

The only appealing things left are the shirts.

Reindeer Rage

Bizarro is brought to you today by my New Year's Eve Hangover.

As is my custom, here is last week's cartoon, so even though it is New Year's Day, you are looking at the Xmas Day cartoon.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I got a lot of angry mail about this one. Most people who complained were obviously Palin supporters and were tired of the never-ending attacks against her. They also saw this as a political cartoon, which I guess I can understand.

In truth, I intended this cartoon to be about the reaction of Santa's reindeer to Palin being an avid hunter and killer of all things not human, and nothing to do with politics at all. I can understand the confusion, most people don't ever consider an animal's point of view toward hunting and Palin is a highly controversial political character, so it is no surprise that that is where many (if not most) reader's minds went immediately.

Many readers complained that I was encouraging violence and vandalism against a public official. True, I'm no fan of Sarah Palin's and believe that her becoming VP would have been a monumental catastrophe from which the country might never have recovered, but I would never condone or encourage violence against her or her property. Given what Miss Wasilla (and her hillbilly clan) would do to these reindeer, however, I think a little spray paint and toilet paper is actually pretty restrained.

To spell it out: THE AUTHOR OF THIS BLOG DOES NOT CONDONE VIOLENCE OR VANDALISM AGAINST ANY MEMBER OF ANY SPECIES. THE ABOVE CARTOON IS A DRAWING, NO ACTUAL REINDEER WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF IT, NOR PROPERTY DAMAGED, NOR GOVERNORS OR BEAUTY QUEENS THREATENED.

Return to your homes and businesses, there is nothing to see here.

Bizarro is brought to you today by Rashid's Walking Sticks of Cairo.

Here is a different take on word play, a collaboration of mine with my friend, Cliff. He and I are working on a book project together, which consists entirely of word puzzles. This cartoon is not part of it, however. More on that as it develops.

I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma and found myself wondering each summer as the heat reached 100% Fahrenheit (that's 614% Celsius for those of you not familiar with the metric system), why people before the days of air conditioning decided to settle there. Especially when you consider that they regularly wore coats and ties and petticoats and long-sleeve dresses and boots and hats. If they didn't have diminished I.Q.s when they got there, they soon would after a few summers dressed like that.

Come to think of it, it might explain some of the voting patterns of the Deep South.